50 shades of gloom at Mom's house

One clear sign you’ve entered an old person’s house is that the drapes are drawn and it’s dark as King Tut’s tomb.

It’s like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland all year round. I walk into a haunted house at Halloween and think, “Gee. This looks just like my mom’s apartment.”

The gloom of the Munster house has nothing on my mother, except she’s too much of a neat freak to leave all those cobwebs hanging around.

In the olden days, people were taught to close the drapes, to keep the furniture from fading. This made sense back when the couch had been pulled by oxen, brought across the plains on a covered wagon.

Nowadays, though, it comes from IKEA and self-destructs automatically in five years, if you ever managed to put it together in the first place.

Actual conversation with my mom:

"Marla, I seem to get quite depressed in the winter. The doctor says it's seasonal affective disorder."

"Mom, you're sitting here in the dark. You have a sliding glass door and a nice patio. Open your curtains."

"But it will fade the couch."

"Who cares? It was ugly when you bought it at Levitz 25 years ago. It's not going to get any uglier if it fades." (OK, I only thought that last part).

I’m sorry, Curtain Drawers of America, but if you didn’t have to read by candle light when you were a child and churn your own butter, then you’re not authorized to keep your house in perpetual darkness.

Let’s face it. People who were raised during the Depression learned how to squeeze a nickel until it squeaks, and they keep doing it, long after it’s medically necessary.

I like to think of myself as thrifty. I’ve been known to wash and reuse aluminum foil and glass jars. In fact, my friends make fun of me for doing it.

But I can’t compare to seniors who are so parsimonious they turn off their hearing aids so they don’t run down the battery. Didn’t hear the fire alarm? No problem. You can just jump out the window when the firefighters arrive.

One reader told me her dad keeps his cell phone turned off, insisting the mobile company will charge him if it’s on – and making it pointless to try to call and check on him.

My mom might be cheap, but at least she never put plastic covers on her couch. Several readers on my Facebook page recalled a childhood spent peeling themselves off their parents’ plastic covers, leaving a few layers of skin behind each time.

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